Through the Kentucky State University Small Farm Project and Beginning Farmer Grant and a collaborative program with the University of Kentucky Extension limited resource farmers learn how to produce honeybees upon their farm.

For some people honeybees are a hobby. However for others honeybees are a means of supporting their family. Tony Schering, of Pulaski County, wanted to raise queen and produce nucs in order to sell the bees for extra income.  

Beekeepers have long known honeybees’ produce in the climate one lives in is better quality and a hardier bee then the ones which are produced from different areas of this country. For this reason there is a high demand for honeybees produced in Kentucky-by-Kentucky beekeepers.

Last two years I have taught several classes on honeybee production in multiple counties. The first year after attending several meeting on how to make a 5-frame nuc, Tony Schering’s went home and practice what I had demostrated. Schering began selling a 5 frame nuc for $150.00 each.

Queens may sound difficult to produce however after one knows how it is not that hard. It takes knowledge in knowing how to set up the system one must make the hive or part of the hive think it is queenless. This encourages the honeybees to start construction of queen cells and feeding the honeybee egg royal jelly. Which in 16 days after the egg is laid result in new queen. As a replacement for the queen they think they have lost. If enough bees are in the hive one can produce as many as 20 queens per hive with out any difficulty. After learning this Schering went home and started producing queens.

Schering’s stated, after his third try which was very successful, “Laura, weirdest thing you ever seen. I had queens running all over my kitchen table as I was trying to mark them. I get five more dollars for marked queens. So I went to store bought an $8 tube of paint and now I mark each queen I produce. I can sell every queen I have plus more.” Schering’s is receiving $20.00 plus extra $5.00 per queen. Last year he sold at least 40 queens. Not to mention the nucs. He took orders this year before he produced them and sold out.

In closing, Schering has proven honeybees by themselves are a means to make an income, which can provide the extra income he needs to sustain him and his wife, who has been diagnosed with cancer. The classes I have provided have fulfilled this need.